


Ohr HaGanuz

by Thesherlockholmes



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Chanukah Fic, Gen, Genderbending, Hanukkah, Hebrew and Yiddish features, Missing Scene, badly explained Chassidus (I tried!)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:55:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28005021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thesherlockholmes/pseuds/Thesherlockholmes
Summary: This separation is too desolate for us, listen to the licking flames. It is my voice, just as yours is, just as your lovers is. Look at the light, kinderlach, don’t look away. Come back, come back to me.A Chanukah fic.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	Ohr HaGanuz

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleMissM](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissM/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Eshes Chayil (Woman of Valor)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17820395) by [Thesherlockholmes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thesherlockholmes/pseuds/Thesherlockholmes). 



> A missing scene from my longer fic Eshes Chayil, which is suspiciously lacking in Yomim Tovim...
> 
> A gift fic for my dear friend, I hope you enjoy this. 
> 
> The word count came exactly to 770, which I thought was far too perfect.

“Az egmor beshir mizmor Chanukat hamizbeach…”

Jo set out the game of dreidel on the floor, emptying bags of chocolate coins, pulling out a jewelled dreidel – a present from her first Chanukah. The menorah was lit on a table in front of the door, per Sherlock’s request, and the girl had set out blankets and cushions for them to sit on. We must, she had insisted, be as close as possible to the menorah. 

So, they sat and they sang in that small, hushed room. Jo had joined her in singing the first few zemiros she knew, swaying just a bit to the melodies. But since then, Sherlock would occasionally sing a few bars of something she didn’t know, soft and lilting, something in Yiddish perhaps. It was suffused with such calm, the yearning in her voice truer than any fact – the voice of a siren, Jo thought, no one should hear that, it’s too beautiful. It is too heartbreaking.

Gazing at her, Jo studied the usual shadows of her friend’s face wholly expelled as the light lit it gold and luminescent, shining off the necklace she had on. Shining off the polished, silver menorah, shining through the crystal oil cups. Every few seconds, Jo noticed, Sherlock would look up from the game and gaze at the flames, expression somehow more contemplative even than usual, an air of calm to it. Melody stopped and then continued, commanded only by a depth of feeling Jo wished to achieve.

“Gimmel,” Jo announced softly. 

“Oh, here,” Sherlock gave her some of the chocolate coins she had collected—it seemed the girl was as good at this as everything else. “You know,” she continued quietly, glancing back at the licht, “Chanukah was always my favourite.”

“Hmm?”

“Always. I heard once, from my brother, that they even lit one during school. He was young, then, but I always wanted that to happen in my class. You know, ‘Kinderlach, look at the lights!’” 

Sherlock laughed softly, voice wistful, “But you know, since we’re not required... I always saw my father and brothers light them for us. I always felt left out, looking at theirs all lined up in the window. How quickly ‘you don’t have to’ becomes ‘you shouldn’t, you need not bother’,” she shook her head, looking down to spin the dreidel.

“Nun, your go. Anyways, when I first lit one – when I moved out – my goodness, I didn’t know what I was doing and poured far too much oil! It must have burned for three hours. I just stared at the one light and sang all the zemiros I knew, over and over. It was the first time I’d felt something, anything... in a tremendously long time.”

“And now?” 

“Well, now you’re here and it’s all the better.” 

She brushed off the reminiscence, coming back to present, to the room and the glowing holy lights, “Can’t you feel the Ohr HaGanuz?”

“Sorry, what?” 

“The – the light of olam haba. The menorah gives us that ruchniyus, you know?”

Jo shook her head, frowning. 

“Do they teach you nothing when you convert? Goodness. Okay, the war was won by thirteen tzadikem, right? Amazing nissim, and it brought people back to Yiddishkeit. The shechinah was brought down to bring them back, way down to the lowest levels – hence the table. The menorah has that energy every year.”

“Right...” 

Sherlock looked over, eyes mischievous and glinting in the candle light, “Didn’t think I could lecture you about Torah?” 

“Wasn’t really expecting it, no.”

Sherlock grinned at her teasing tone, “Just full of surprises. It’s your turn.”

Jo spun the dreidel and on they went until the flames died and the chocolate coins had all been won and eaten. 

A night with four small stars at their fingertips. This is what peace is, this is contentment. Oil and cotton, belief and feeling. Sing in tones, my children, before the candlelight and come to me, come back. This separation is too desolate for us, listen to the licking flames. It is my voice, just as yours is, just as your lovers is. Look at the light, kinderlach, don’t look away. Come back, come back to me.

She wished, resting her head on Sherlock’s shoulder watching as the final flame flickered out, that the warmth of the night wouldn’t fade, wouldn’t dim along with the menorah, that the shining gold pallor of Sherlock’s face would never grow cold. There was too much hope in that moment, far too much, for too many things. Such is the light of the menorah. 

“Sing that song again,” Jo whispered and very softly, Sherlock did.


End file.
